Canadian welcome: Warm greetings for refugees at airports

Canada is bucking the trend seen in anti-immigrant countries such as the US and Norway - and rolling out the welcome wagon for refugees landing in their international airports.

A revamped terminal at Toronto’s Pearson Airport has been specifically designed to greet Syrian refugees with multi-lingual information, winter clothing, social security numbers, and food upon their arrival.

“We certainly hope they will never forget the first day they arrive in Canada,” Heidi Jurisic of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada told the Toronto Star. “They will enter this terminal as refugees and leave as permanent residents of Canada.”

According to the Canada Border Services Agency, all passengers will be processed through immigration within “three to four hours”.